The Good Stuff
by Ralinde
Summary: Andromeda always knew that one day, Teddy would start asking questions about his parents. She just hadn't thought it would come so quickly, when she wasn't ready yet. Andromeda/Teddy bonding fic, with a dollop of Andromeda/Molly friendship on the side.


_A/N. Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognise. Characters and locations from the Potterverse all belong to the amazng JK Rowling. The lyrics to the song are from Sheryl Crow (I was thinking about the Coldplay version, until it dawned on me that that song didn't come out until 2008 and this takes place somewhere in 2002 (and Ted died either in 1997 or 1998)). The tv show Andy Pandy is courtesy of BBC._

* * *

><p>Teddy was not a normal child- in fact, he was as unusual as you could get, and according to Andromeda Tonks, that was a very good thing, most of the time.<p>

There were however also days where she'd readily glue him to a wall and cover him with a thick layer of wallpaper. Today was such a day.

It had started at breakfast, when Teddy's cereals had mysteriously turned into chocolate hoops. He _honestly_ didn't have a clue as to how that happened, he swore, but he had a triumphant look in his eyes and had started eating away at his chocolate hoops contently.

Then, there had been the incident at the photographer. No matter what the poor man did, Teddy kept changing not only his hair colour, but also his physical appearance, making capturing him on camera almost impossible.

"A little Metamorphmagus we have here, haven't we?" the photographer had hummed cheerily. "Now young man, I need you to sit still and stay the same for a while, can you do that?"

Teddy had thought about it for a moment. "I can. But I don't want to."

Andromeda had sighed. "Come on, Teddy. Be a good boy now. It'll be over very soon, and then afterwards we can go to the playground."

That seemed to have done the trick, for Teddy sat perfectly still for the next ten minutes, allowing her a moment of peace and quiet.

-o0o-

"Gran, did I do well with the photographer?" he asked when they were outside.

She nodded. "Yes, in the end you did, but you really had me ashamed for a while."

He hung his head and mumbled an "I'm sorry," and her heart melted. She couldn't stay mad at him for long – and he knew that, too – and she ruffled his hair. "Let's go to the playground. Next time, just listen from the start, okay? Then you can go to the playground earlier."

"Okay."

They walked over to the park – Teddy nearly managed to fall into a nearby pond when he tripped – and as soon as he saw the swings, Teddy bolted forwards. Andromeda set herself down on a park bench and let the rays of the spring sun touch her face and hands. She felt the cold melt away.

Teddy was swinging happily away, his cheeks a fiery red of excitement and fun.

"Teddy, no, you can't go that high!" she called for the umpteenth time. Of course, being the four-year-old that he was, he didn't heed her advice and went higher still, squealing with delight as the wind ruffled his hair. Then he let go of the swing and flew through the air. Images of Teddy with a broken leg – or worse a broken back – flashed through Andromeda's mind as she pulled out her wand and only just managed to stop time momentarily, enough so he didn't crash into the ground, but landed on it with a loud thud.

"What on earth do you think you were doing?" she yelled. Her face was a pale shade of grey as she hurried to check he hadn't broken anything. "You scared the living daylights out of me!"

Teddy lay silent for a moment, a bit dazed, but then he laughed. "That was great, Gran, do it again!"

"No it wasn't! You could have died, or paralysed yourself! Don't ever do that again."

Teddy got up, brushed the dirt of his trousers and jacket and made for the swings again.

"Oh no, you don't. We're going home."

"But Gran…," he whined.

"No 'buts', we're going home. I've had quite enough excitement for one day."

She grabbed his hand and dragged a protesting Teddy to the Apparation point.

"Now, you know what will happen if you're not completely still while we Apparate, right?"

Teddy nodded. He had once made a move just when she turned on the spot, and as a result he had spent a week lying in St Mungo's. He wasn't willing to repeat that.

They landed in the backyard of their small cottage and Andromeda let out a sigh of relief. _Thank goodness they were home_.

Teddy seemed to have forgotten the incident in the playground already and ran of.

Fifteen minutes later, Andromeda found him playing out a made-up story with the plush toy unicorn that had once belonged to Nymphadora and one of the action heroes of a tv show Teddy loved. She wasn't overly fond of the puppet show, but she thought Teddy loved it because the main character was called Andy – like her friends called her – and the main character's best friend was called Teddy, and he often pretended that that was him. Uncle Richard couldn't have given him a more fitting toy.

"There it was, the evil beast, trying to spear Andy. But Teddy was there and he hit the unicorn on the head…" The poor plush unicorn – his favourite toy last year – was smacked unceremoniously on the ground.

She couldn't stop herself. "Teddy, you do _know_ unicorns are rare, mysterious and really _good _creatures, don't you? And you can't hit them in real life."

He looked up, interrupted in his story. "Yes. But Andy is scared of them, so Teddy makes them go away."

"I see. But why is Andy so afraid of unicorns?"

"Because they have a horn of course," he explained, like she was the four-year-old and he the adult.

"Well, I can't reason with that," Andromeda said. "But don't you think Teddy is being a bit mean to the unicorn? Maybe the unicorn only wants to play. Maybe Teddy can teach Andy how not to be afraid of unicorns anymore?"

His face twisted in a frown as he considered this. Then he looked at the plush unicorn. At last, he seemed to reach a conclusion. He picked up the unicorn from the ground and gently set it on its legs.

"You don't have to be afraid of unicorns, Andy," he told the toy hero. "Look, it just wants to play."

Andromeda let him to it then with a smile on her lips. He really was a sweetheart.

-o0o-

When she tugged him in at night, she was glad the day was over, for it had been an unnerving one, altogether.

"Sleep tight, little man. Tomorrow, we are going to visit Molly at the Burrow."

Teddy sat up excitedly. "Is Vicky there too?"

Being a single child in a family of older cousins, Victoire was the only child he knew who was around his age.

"I don't know, honey. She might be."

Teddy wrinkled his nose as he thought about something.

"Gran?"

"Yes?"

"Molly is Vicky's Gran, isn't she?"

"That's right, why are you asking that?"

"Then where does Vicky go to when she isn't there when I want to play with her?"

Andromeda's heart skipped a beat. It was a simple enough question, voiced with the logic of a four-year-old, but she could see where this would lead to and she didn't know if she was ready.

"She's with her Mum and Dad," she managed.

"Oh." Teddy was silent for a moment.

Andromeda thought she might be spared the inevitable this time, and exhaled slowly of relief.

"Gran?"

_Or not._

"Where are my Mum and Dad? Don't they want me to live with them?"

Andromeda swallowed away the lump in her throat and the tears in her eyes. _He was so young, she just couldn't tell him…_

"Oh Teddy," she sighed and hugged him tight. "Gran loves you so much, you know that, right?"

She felt him nod.

"Gran will tell you all about your Mum and Dad when you're a bit older, okay?"

"Okay."

"Good boy. Now go to sleep, honey."

She gave him another hug and then let go. She quickly wiped away her tears, but she wasn't quick enough.

"Gran, are you crying?" he asked, alarmed.

"No, it's nothing…" she tried but he saw right through that.

"Don't cry Gran. I won't ask again if it makes you sad."

That did little to stop the tears from falling. "Oh sweety, don't say that. One day, I will tell you, just… not now. But there's one thing I want you to know: your Mum and Dad loved you very much. They are just… in a place where they can't take care of you." She kissed him and he quietly lay back in his bed, not entirely convinced but determined not to press the issue further if it made his Gran cry.

"They cared more about you than about anything else in the world," she whispered. "Remember that, your Mum and Dad would have never left you if they had had a choice."

With a heavy heart, Andromeda left him room. It broke when she looked back and saw the tiny figure curled up in a ball in his bed, pressing his eyes tight shut and pretending to be asleep already. She closed the door and the tears were falling freely now, for she was unable to stop them from coming.

"Don't hate me, darling," she whispered into the night. "I know he deserves to know about you, about you both, but I just can't. Not yet. But I promise you I will tell him. When he's older."

* * *

><p>"Andy!" Molly scolded when Andromeda told her next morning what had happened. "You can't hold it from him, they're his parents!"<p>

"I know," Andromeda said miserably. "But he's still so young. He's far to young to be confronted with death and war and evil."

"Then start with the good stuff. Show him some photo albums of Dora when she was his age. But you _have_ to tell him. He has a right to know. He'll resent you later if you don't."

"I know that too. But it just hurts. It hurts so much, Molly, to even think about them. She was my world. She was the reason for my existence, the light in the darkness. Always so cheerful and now… she's gone." She sobbed silently into her handkerchief. "I'm barely holding on as it is and I feel like I'm not doing Teddy justice, I can't be the Mum he needs…"

"Hey," Molly placed a soothing hand on Andromeda's arm. "No one is saying you should replace Tonks... Dora, I mean. No one is asking that of you, least of all Teddy."

"It's just… no one should have to bury their own children. It just isn't right!"

Molly froze and Andromeda immediately realised the insensitivity. "Oh Molly, I'm so sorry. I wasn't thinking. Please forgive me."

"It doesn't matter whether you have one child or seven," Molly said in a tight voice, fighting back her tears. "Losing one leaves a hole in your heart that will never heal. Our children…and our loved ones…they deserve to be remembered. They deserve it that we speak of them, that we don't forget who they were and what made us love them so."

They embraced each other, mourning the lives that were lost, shedding silent tears in the knowledge that the other _understood_.

"Sometimes, I think I'll see that vibrant shade of pink walk right through the front door."

"Sometimes, I still call George Fred by accident."

"Sometimes, all I really want is to feel Ted's arms around me again."

"Sometimes, I would give anything to have my brothers tease me with my hair again."

"Sometimes, I long for the days where Bella would braid mine."

There was a moment of awkward silence. Molly had been the one who killed Bellatrix, when the latter had attempted to kill another one of Molly's children.

"My Boggart shows me the dead bodies of my family, one after the other."

"My greatest fear is never dying and never being reunited with them again."

They held each other just a little closer, both being the other's shoulder to lean on.

It was Molly who broke the silence first. "Promise me you'll tell him, Andy," she said softly.

"I-I will," Andy choked. "You're right. But it's so difficult…"

"I know. Nobody said it was easy."

"But no one said it'd be this hard," Andy replied, remembering a phrase from a song Ted used to listen to.

"No, no one ever told us how hard this would be," Molly agreed sadly.

* * *

><p>That evening, when she brought Teddy to bed, Andromeda looked at her grandson, and she made a decision. Start with the good stuff, wasn't that what Molly had said? Molly was right, she shouldn't keep his parents from him. He deserved to know who they had been.<p>

"Hey Teddy, are you very sleepy?"

"No," he replied curiously. "Not until hou-ours." He yawned as he said it, which quite spoiled the effect of his words.

"Accio photo album," Andromeda whispered and moments later, a thick, leather-bound album appeared.

"What's that?" Teddy asked wide-eyed, his sleep forgotten.

"That," Andromeda said solemnly, "is a photo album with photos from your Mum when she was little. Come, let's look at it together, shall we?"

Teddy pulled up his blanket and cuddled into her side.

She opened the album. On the first page, there was a picture of her and Ted, holding a little bundle with a tuft of lilac hair.

"Is that my Mum?" She could sense his anticipation and showed a wry smile. _She should have done this earlier…_

"Yes, that's her."

"But she's so tiny! She's smaller than Vicky!"

Andromeda laughed. "Yes, that's because she was just a baby when this photo was taken, Look, that's me. And that's your Gramps."

One by one, she started flipping the pages, while Teddy pointed at photos he particularly liked, or thought were funny – and given the kind of child Nymphadora had been, there were quite a few of those – and Andromeda felt her resistance resolve as she remembered the good stuff: the laughter; the playing hide-and-seek; the hideous self-made vase on Mother's Day; the day the kitchen had been covered in cookie dough; the day Nymphadora had come home wearing two different kind of socks and a pull that wasn't her own, because she had 'switched' with someone in her class. There were so many good memories to pull from, that she just didn't know where to start.

She stopped midsentence when Teddy pointed at one particular photo. "That's my unicorn!" he exclaimed.

Andromeda nodded. "Yeah, it was your Mum's first. I fixed it so you could have it."

Teddy leapt up from the bed and ran down the stairs.

"Teddy? Teddy, where are you going?"

Shortly after that, Teddy ran back into to room, panting, but clutching the plush unicorn in his little fists.

"I'm going to sleep with it, Gran, from now on, so Mum's always with me."

"Oh Teddy," she said tenderly and hugged him tight. "You do that. I think your Mum would like that."

Andromeda continued flipping through the album and told Teddy the stories of the little girl that had been his Mum. He asked if she liked peanut cookies, like he did, and she told him yes. He asked her if she liked swings when she was younger, and Andromeda replied that they had been her favourite pastime. He asked if she had liked watching the stars at night, and she told him that no, that must've come from his father.

When he was older, she could tell him about the war that had taken his parents, his granddad, his great-aunt and many, many others, but for now, she would focus on the good stuff.

She knew she imagined it, but she could swear that she heared Nymphadora's voice in her ear: "I'm so proud of you, Mum. You're doing the right thing. I love you." She thought she could feel Ted's strong arms around her, and for the first time since his death, they gave her solace instead of grief. And Andromeda knew then that this was the start of a healing process. She looked aside at Teddy, who had fallen asleep, curled up next to her, the plush unicorn clutched in his little fist and the thumb of his other hand in his mouth. He hadn't done that since he was two years old, and the sight was endearing.

"We'll get there, Teddy, you and I," she murmured. "We'll get there."

* * *

><p><em>AN: this was written for the Last Man Standing, for the House Hufflepuff. The task was to write about Teddy asking about his parents, and the quote we had to use is the very first line of this story. This was also written for the Musical Chairs Competion, which has daily rotating prompts. The prompt I picked out of the ones for today was 'plush toy unicorn.'. _


End file.
